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Big Three sales in Japan booming after trade pact

TOKYO: President Bill Clinton may get a chance to kick the tyres of an all-American made Chrysler on his visit to Japan this week, something he would have found hard to do on his last visit three years ago.

He is scheduled this week to visit Chrysler's top showroom in Japan, which sits in a Tokyo suburb next to a raised highway and features the automaker's right-hand drive Jeep Cherokees.

Right-hand drive vehicles have become a symbol of the U.S. "Big Three" automakers' aggressive efforts to make inroads into Japan after the Clinton administration's negotiated opening of the car market last August.

The Japanese government had claimed at the time that U.S. automakers were unable to sell in this market because their steering wheels were on the wrong side. Traffic in Japan drives on the left, the opposite side to that in the United States.

Since the trade negotiations began, sales by the Big Three have been booming.

"In two years we quadrupled our sales of Jeep Cherokees," a Chrysler spokesman said. "Last year we sold about 12,000 and we hope to quadruple the sales again in the next two years."

That is a dramatic change from several years ago when then chairman Lee Iacocca said on a Japan visit that Chrysler had sold only two cars in Japan that year.

Chrysler attributes the turnaround to the introduction of right-hand drive vehicles, low pricing and increased sales outlets, the spokesman said. Chrysler plans to introduce several new right-hand drive vehicles to Japan later this year, to add to its current two.

The automaker's Jeep Cherokee is made specifically for the Japanese market at its factory in Toledo, Ohio.

Ford and General Motors are also aggressive in the Japanese market and have seen their sales grow dramatically since last year's U.S.-Japan agreement on increasing access to the Japanese car and car parts market.

Ford makes a right-hand drive Taurus in Atlanta, Georgia, for the Japan market and GM a right-hand-drive Cavalier in Lordstown, Ohio, which is sold in Japan by Toyota.

Although the Big Three regard the Japanese playing field as fairer after the Clinton administration secured the trade agreement, they still feel their small number of dealers inhibits sales.

Chrysler has only 187 sales outlets, compared with Toyota's massive 5,600.

But Clinton's visit to Chrysler's grey, blue-bannered showroom could help entice independent dealers to take a closer look at handling Big Three cars.

The competitiveness of Japan's car and truck market is highlighted by the opening of a Toyota dealership right next door to the Chrysler showroom.

Japan has 11 automakers competing head-on in the market, in addition to U.S., German and other European car makers.

The Japanese market in 1995 totalled 5.15 million vehicles, of which the Big Three had less than a two percent share, including the sales of all their European subsidiaries. The top sellers of foreign in Japan last year, excluding imports from the overseas units of Japanese carmakers, were Germany's Volkswagen AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, according to Japanese car industry data.

Clinton will spend three days in Japan and meet Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who as then trade minister had a key role in last August's bilateral car negotiations.-Reuter